Ukraine’s Crisis, Russia’s Policy, Western Responses

April 21, 2014 10:00 AM Age: 316 days

Category: Event, Europe, Ukraine, Russia

On Monday, April 21, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, The Jamestown Foundation held a half-day event on the turbulent situation in Ukraine. The event, titled “Ukraine’s Crisis, Russia’s Policy, Western Responses,” opened with remarks by Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Olexander Motsyk, who discussed his country’s plans for dealing with the crisis and integrating into the West. His opening address was followed by the first panel, which focused on issues related to regime change and state continuity in Ukraine. Matthew Rojansky, the director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, began by speaking about the Maidan revolutionary movement. Visiting Jamestown fellow Maksym Bugriy spoke next about the cross-cutting interests between the Ukrainian oligarchs, the central government and the military in eastern Ukraine. Jamestown Senior Fellow Vladimir Socor concluded the panel by discussing the dangers to Ukraine’s statehood inherent in Moscow’s plans to federalize the country. The second panel, which charted U.S. and European responses to the crisis, began with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst’s assessment of Washington’s response to the situation. Next, Lithuania’s Ambassador to the United States Žygimantas Pavilionis detailed what Europe must do to respond to Russia’s aggression and Ukraine’s weaknesses. Finally, Ambassador Matthew Bryza, the Director of the International Centre for Defense Studies in Tallinn, Estonia, and a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, placed the Ukraine crisis in a wider context of rethinking collective security in Europe.

PARTICIPANT BIOGRAPHIES

Matthew Bryza

Matthew Bryza is the Director of the International Center for Defence studies in Tallinn, Estonia, and a member of the Board of Directors of The Jamestown Foundation. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States. He resides in Istanbul, Turkey, where he also works as a consultant on business and democratic development and as a board member of several private companies.

Bryza just completed a 23-year career as a U.S. diplomat, over half of which he spent at the center of policy-making and international negotiations on major energy infrastructure projects and regional conflicts in Eurasia. His most recent assignment was as U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan from February 2011 to January 2012.

During 2005 to 2009, Ambassador Bryza served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, with responsibility for Eurasian Energy, the South Caucasus, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. Ambassador Bryza simultaneously served as the U.S. Co-Chair of the OSCE’s Minsk Group mediating the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and as U.S. mediator of the Cyprus, South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts.

During 2001 to 2005, Ambassador Bryza served in the White House as Director for European and European Affairs on the National Security Council Staff. His responsibilities included Eurasian energy, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, and political Islam in Eurasia.

Previous assignments include Deputy to the Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Caspian Energy, Advisor on Economic Reform in the South Caucasus and Central Asia and Russia Desk Officer at the State Department; and Political Officer at the U.S. Missions to Russia (1995–97) and Poland (1989–91).

Maksym Bugriy

Maksym Bugriy is a Ukrainian analyst who specializes in Ukraine and the CIS region, international economics and international security. He writes for the Eurasia daily Monitor on the Ukrainian-Russian relations and economic and military security issues of Ukraine and Eurasia. Mr. Bugriy has broad career experience as an analyst and researcher with leading Ukrainian think tanks, including The Institute of Euro-Atlantic Cooperation and the Ukrainian Institute for Public Policy. During 2011, he was a public servant as Head of the Geo-Economics Sector with the Ukrainian Presidential think tank The National Institute for Strategic Studies. Prior to working as an international affairs analyst, Mr. Bugriy spent more than ten years working as a research analyst and corporate finance associate with regional leading investment banks including Troika Dialog (2006–2010). He graduated with an MBA from the Catalica Lisbon School of Business and Economics and with a Master’s of Finance from the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv. Currently he is a PhD researcher in National Economic Security with the National Institute for Strategic Studies. Mr. Bugriy lives with his wife in Kyiv.

John E. Herbst

John E. Herbst became the Director of the Center for Complex Operations at National Defense University in September of 2010. Prior to that position, John served for 31 years as a Foreign Service Officer in the Department of State, retiring at the rank of Career-Minister. In his last four years at the State Department, he served as the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. In that capacity, John led the development of U.S. Government civilian capacity to promote the stabilization and reconstruction of societies in transition from conflict or civil strife, and to provide support to countries at risk of instability. He oversaw the establishment of the Civilian Response Corps of the United States. The Corps’ Active, Standby, and Reserve components will span eight federal government agencies, local governments, and the private sector. The Corps is the U.S. civilian rapid response force for reconstruction and stabilization operations overseas.

In May 2003, John was appointed the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. During his tenure, he worked to enhance U.S-Ukrainian relations, to help ensure the conduct of a fair Ukrainian presidential election, and to prevent violence during the Orange Revolution. Prior to that, John was the U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, where he played a critical role in the establishment of an American base to help conduct Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. He also promoted improved U.S.-Uzbek relations, in part by encouraging the government in Tashkent to improve its human rights record.

John previously served as U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem; Principal Deputy to the Ambassador at Large for the Newly Independent States; the Director of the Office of Independent States and Commonwealth Affairs; Director of Regional Affairs in the Near East Bureau; as political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and at the Embassies in Moscow and Saudi Arabia. He played a pivotal role in persuading Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine to accept changes in the Conventional Forces Europe Flanks Agreement. John has received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Secretary of State’s Career Achievement Award, and the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award.

William Green Miller

Ambassador William Green Miller is a Senior Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. There, he works on a project titled, “Creation of a Relationship between Ukraine and the U.S.” His long career of public service working on foreign affairs and defense policy in both the executive and legislative branches of government has been deepened by his experience teaching at universities and as a leader of non-governmental foreign policy organizations. Between 1993 and 1998, he served as the United States Ambassador to Ukraine. Prior to that he was president of the American Committee on United States-Soviet Relations and had traveled frequently throughout the Soviet Union, obtaining first-hand knowledge of the great changes taking place. From 1981 to 1983, Ambassador Miller was associate dean and professor of International Politics of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Before that, he worked as a staffer in the United States Senate, including as staff director of three special Senate committees and as an advisor to Senator John Sherman Cooper for foreign policy, arms control and defense policy.

Olexander Motsyk

Olexander Motsyk is Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States. A career diplomat, Mr. Motsyk has worked for more than 30 years in the field of foreign relations. Prior to his assignment in the U.S., he served as Ambassador of Ukraine to Turkey and Poland. Ambassador Motsyk has extensive experience in international law in his capacity as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for several years. He headed Ukrainian delegations in negotiations with the Russian Federation on the delimitation of the state border, maritime delimitation in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait; with Romania on the legal status of the state border and establishment of the Agreement on Delimitation of the Continental Shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone in the Black Sea; as well as with the European Commission on readmission issues.

Ambassador Motsyk graduated summa cum laude in 1981 from the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv State University’s School of International Relations in the Department of International Law. He published numerous essays and articles in the field of international law and international relations, in particular on the succession of states with respect to state property, archives and debts, the Law of the Sea, on Black Sea Economic Cooperation, as well as bilateral Ukrainian-Turkish, Ukrainian-Polish and Ukrainian-American relations.

Žygimantas Pavilionis

Žygimantas Pavilionis is Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania to the United States and Mexico. From 2009 until taking up his current position in July 2010, Ambassador Pavilionis was Ambassador-at-Large at the Transatlantic Cooperation and Security Policy Department, Coordinating for Lithuania’s Presidency of the Community of Democracies, at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Vilnius.

From 2006 to 2009 Ambassador Pavilionis served as an Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania. From 1999 to 2002, Ambassador Pavilionis was posted at the Lithuanian Permanent Mission to the European Communities in Brussels, first as a Lithuanian Minister Counselor and later as a Director of European Integration Department and Deputy Chief Negotiator for Lithuania’s Accession to the European Union (2002–2004). Ambassador Pavilionis also worked as a Third Secretary of the foreign ministry’s West European Division, an Assistant of the Political Director, and as First Secretary and Head of the Political Cooperation Division at the European Integration Department.

Born in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 1971, Žygimantas Pavilionis graduated from the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University. In 2013, he defended his doctoral thesis at the same institution. Žygimantas Pavilionis is married and has four children. He can be followed on Twitter @zygispavilionis.

Matthew Rojansky

Matthew Rojansky is the director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. He is an expert on U.S. relations with the states of the former Soviet Union, especially Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. He has advised governments, intergovernmental organizations, and major private actors on conflict resolution and efforts to enhance shared security throughout the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian region.

From 2010 to 2013, he was Deputy Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. There, he founded Carnegie’s Ukraine Program, led a multi-year project to support U.S.-Russia health cooperation, and created a track-two task force to promote resolution of the Moldova-Transnistria conflict. From 2007 to 2010, Rojansky served as executive director of the Partnership for a Secure America (PSA). While at PSA, Rojansky orchestrated high-level bipartisan initiatives aimed at repairing the U.S.-Russian relationship, strengthening the U.S. commitment to nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, and leveraging global science engagement for diplomacy.

Rojansky is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS and American University, and a participant in the Dartmouth Dialogues, a track-two U.S.-Russian conflict resolution initiative begun in 1960. He is frequently interviewed on TV and radio, and his writing has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and Foreign Policy.

Vladimir Socor

Vladimir Socor is a Senior Fellow of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation and its flagship publication, Eurasia Daily Monitor (1995 to present), where he writes analytical articles on a daily basis. An internationally recognized expert on former Soviet-ruled countries in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, he covers Russian and Western policies there, focusing on energy policies, regional security issues, secessionist conflicts, and NATO policies and programs.

Mr. Socor is a frequent speaker at U.S. and European policy conferences and think-tank institutions. He is a regular guest lecturer at the NATO Defense College and at Harvard University's National Security Program’s Black Sea Program (Kennedy School of Government). He is also a frequent contributor to edited volumes. Mr. Socor was previously an analyst with the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute (1983–1994). He is a Romanian-born citizen of the United States based in Munich, Germany.